Opportunities for environmental technologies and consulting in Myanmar

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Opportunities for environmental technologies and consulting in Myanmar

Feb 13, 2017

Air quality

Clean water

Water technology

In Myanmar, environmental issues get a lot of attention from the government and the public.

The government of Myanmar has issued new laws regarding air pollution and waste water treatment, complying with strict IFC standards. The new law applies to multiple industries: cement, steel mills and other coal burning industries, power plants, distilleries (burning rice husk), sugar factories, rock crushing industry, mining, municipalities, etc.

The authorities do not exactly know how to implement the new regulations. On the other hand, the Government has informed that if companies can't fulfill the new requirements in a one-year period, their industrial operation licenses will not be renewed. Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank are financing projects in this area.

New Yangon and Mandalay City administrations, under the civilian Government, have high expectations from the public, and pressure to develop also their waste management systems. Presently, the waste collection, logistics and waste treatment are not properly organized. Municipal solid waste volumes in Yangon were approximately 1981 tons per day (2016), and in Mandalay approximately 955 tons per day (World Bank, 2015).

According to the experts, Myanmar has one of the most promising untapped oil and gas reserves both on-shore and off-shore. After removal of the sanctions, Myanmar's Government auctioned 30 new off-shore blocks for multinational companies to start exploration. Both private sector players as well as Government sector (Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise under Ministry of Electricity and Energy) have realized that Myanmar is not well prepared for small or bigger oil disasters. If something happened, local authorities would be asking help from Singapore and other neighboring countries.

Hundreds of bigger industrial plants must improve their emission air quality. Also cities and municipalities especially in Yangon and Mandalay are looking for long term solutions for waste water treatment. There is not much competition in these sectors, yet.

This provides excellent business opportunities for the likes of air pollution filtering systems (multi cyclone, back filters, scrubbers, etc.), monitoring equipment, capacity building and process auditing, ambient air quality monitoring systems, industrial and municipal waste water treatment technology, engineering consulting, capacity building, water/waste water monitoring equipment, relining for old sewage.

Waste management

City administrations are actively looking for new waste management solutions and they are open for initiatives and proposals from the private sector. There is also a lack of electricity in Myanmar; thus Yangon and Mandalay city administrations are interested in waste-to-energy solutions, which will require also reorganizing of (municipal) waste collection. Consequently, there are business opportunities for Finnish companies in waste collection equipment, recycling technology, logistics, separation/RDF plants and waste-to-energy solutions. In both cities the top administrators are aware that Finland can offer good solutions.

Oil spill management

Multinational companies like Total, Shell, PTT, Petronas, Daewoo, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger as well as several local companies (mainly active in on-shore) are actively involved in oil & gas operations. In addition, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian and Singaporean companies are active in these operations.

There is a clear indication that Myanmar is interested in increasing the local capacity and preparedness related to oil spill management. This provides business opportunities for Finnish companies providing capacity building-related machinery and equipment.

Next steps

There will be a business delegation to Myanmar led by the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Mr. Kai Mykkänen in February 7 to 10, 2017, where environmental solutions are one of the focus areas. More information here.